I agree and disagree with Louis on this.

The supporting the local stores over the small difference in price on goods, but when it comes to the larger chains actually giving you the service you want over the older stores not, then we diverge.

I'm not going to have a worse experience and continue to support a local store purely on the basis of them being a local store, when I could be getting what I want (the latest release movie when I actually want to watch it) from a chain.

Now, the video store is becoming an arcane example, because who the hell actually uses them anymore, but the thought behind it remains. You don't get worse service, lower quality goods, or not the goods you want purely to support a local store.

What local stores have to have is a point of difference, and when he starts talking about book stores, there's a perfect example. The big chain stores have all the 'latest' and 'popular' books, but they don't have a depth of range. Have a store that specializes in a genre (childrens/education, fantasy/sci fi, literature) and then overlay on that a wonderful experience (great feel to the store, reading areas, friendly staff) and you may have to weather an initial drop in sales when the big store comes into town, but I bet it'll come back again when people get over the excitement of the new store and realize that they can't find the books they really want in it. (I know that this 'weathering' time is quite possibly not realistic financially for a lot of stores, and that's a horrible thing).

Supporting a store purely based on it being local is ridiculous. Supporting a store because they provide you with things you can't get at another store (even if that other thing is a 'Hi Bob' when you come into the store) is why you go to shops.

Now, stories like his coffee story make me sad. Because there is a business with a point of difference that didn't make it.

That shits me, people going 'meh, Starbucks is good enough, I'll go there instead of crossing the street'.

Starbucks is shit coffee, they closed most of the stores they opened here in Australia because we like our f*cking coffee (Especially here in Melbourne... man, we sell espresso coffee everywhere, hardware stores, plant nurseries, book shops, clothing stores) and it didn't take that long for most of the Starbucks to close up and die because people realised their coffee was shit. So having a good coffee place closed down by Starbucks definitely speaks to me of consumers who are dumbass shits who will just put up with any old crap over quality just to save a few cents or avoid crossing a street.

Well, fuck them, they deserve the shit they get.

I like cgi, but it is also the most hardest artform to shake off the "somethings wrong" factor. Avatar was indeed the best imo, the muscle usage and facial animation is the best I have seen.

As for legend, I had no issue with the CGI humans, and imo the above makeup test looks pretty bad. The eyes are clearly mechanical and blink at odd times. The CGI humans offered up a bit of a translucent type skin, also they showed a slimed down body design that only runway models could capture.

the problem with traditional makeup when used with monsters and aliens is that they can get pigion holed into 2 legged designs which is not realistic, or interesting.

I think what the cop said could have been in much better taste(IE not calling woman who dress scantily sluts). But honestly what he said was true.

I'm not saying a woman should get raped if she walks around naked, it's her choice and I'd be fine with that. But it's like me walking around with money sticking out of my pocket thinking people aren't going to mug me, it's just not realistic.

If you dress very scandalously you will attract more attention, some of it positive and some of it negative. It just takes one creep from the negative attention part to hurt you.

>> ^gwiz665:

@campionidelmondo I disagree. Any complex system needs instructions of some sort for uhm some people. Arguably, it would be better if everything was just intuitive and instantly knowable, but it's just not realistic with some of the things we have - and the budget, I guess.


That's pretty much my point. The system has gotten way too complex and convoluted. It's not that obvious if you've been a member for some time and the system has grown around you, but if you'd see the site through the eyes of a new member...oh boy. The wiki is not going to change anything imo, because I doubt many new members will invest the time to go through it. I mean if they don't read the FAQ, why would they read the wiki? Besides, a website explaining how to use a website? C'mon.

@campionidelmondo I disagree. Any complex system needs instructions of some sort for uhm some people. Arguably, it would be better if everything was just intuitive and instantly knowable, but it's just not realistic with some of the things we have - and the budget, I guess.

@Abel_Prisc there's realism and then there's realism.

Lord of the Rings is obviously not realistic - orcs, giant spiders and so on - but it feels real. A good scifi, fantasy or any genre show that takes you out of the real world, still should feel real, or there is no connection with the audience. Some times, you just accept a given thing - "we have warp drives" - even though it isn't realistic, but you accept it as a suspension of disbelief (or leap of faith, if you will). I think Fringe piles on too much in the suspension of disbelief; new things all the time, weirder and weirder... by the end you can't ignore your doubt of the show.

>> ^kymbos:

It is possible that they are not talking about America. This may shock, but sometimes people are not talking about America when they talk.
>> ^rougy:
"Socialism is NOT the problem, not even on the radar. Socialism is what rich people scream if anything threatens their profit." (from the Daily KOS)
How true.
There is no socialism in America.
And the only thing that corporatists fear most about socialism is its success, not its failure.
The notion that nothing in the world will work unless a handful of people profit handsomely at the expense of everybody else...has to be one of the most perverted concepts ever devised.



Who said he was? Me? Where did I say that?

What he's saying is that socialism doesn't work, period.

He's saying that nothing can work unless there is a profit motive.

The profits in capitalist countries are--to a large degree--controlled by, and funneled to, a small percentage of the population.

To claim that nothing can get done unless those people make a profit is just...not realistic.

It's dogmatic.

EDIT: All right, it did sound like I was just talking about America, but I meant it in a bigger sense. Why, I may have even meant places as grandiose and wonderful as say, Australia.

Nah....

He only debunked the first fix because of the drilling.

The rest of them, could, work but are not realistic.

Just to throw in my two cents.

Let me preface this by saying I love Jon Stewart and the daily show, but I felt this was just a crucifixion. Jon even started the show by showing how much he prepared for this (in a comedic fashion), yet if you saw how Cramer went on shows previously to talk about the interview, that he was nervous as he didn't know what to expect. (Martha Stewart, etc)

I think my biggest problem was that he pulled out "clips" of Cramer saying this or that, and then went on to just basically bury the poor guy about it. He deserved it in a sense, but I doubt Cramer is a billionaire that needs to be pounded like he was. Jon's biggest beef is with how the market "orchestrates" things, and somehow put that gigantic blame on Cramer, or that at least he should expose that. All Cramer could do was agree with him -- everyone is in bed with one another in terms of financial dealings, which I'm sure most of us understand to some extent. He even pointed out that from '99 to '07 they were pulling in 30% gains year over year. Those were great years. Yet not realistic. That wasn't Cramer's fault or even Wallstreet. It's easy to have hindsight after the fact, which is the small point that Cramer meekly tried to make, which is true. The market is now correcting itself, and it sucks. All those gains you made, have to go away now, because they weren't "real".

I guess it's interesting that he nailed some guy that is involved in the financial industry, but come on, nail someone who's worth nailing. I guess it's a start though -- I hope he continues pushing the financial industry. Perhaps they'll send someone in who can actually debate properly

i'm confused

"it's not realistic...you should just wait 10 years" ??

oh her last name is Palin what should I expect.

As a former Wal-Mart employee (Oops, I meant to say "associate"), I can attest to the fact that no employee (Oops again) no associate is allowed to stand around without working for 2 minutes and 22 seconds. Even if they are trivializing the impact of unions.

Oh, and they look happy. This is not realistic at all.

I think the world just needs to carve a territory out of somewhere in the middle east and call it Palestine. Just like they did for Israel. Arbitrarily give them some chunk of land at least 2 miles away from Israel. The 2 mile buffer must be an uninhabited demilitarized zone. Put the Palestinians in this new country and never the twain shall meet again. Not realistic I know, but that's what needs to happen. There will never be a solution to this mess if the two people are allowed to remain in proximity to each other. They just need to 'moat' off Isreal from its terrorist neighbors and then any violence becomes a matter of internal Isreali security.

Who should give up the Territory? Two options depending on how you view it...

1. The United States should create a 51st state "Palestine" from its own territory. This is because the US was (primarily) the one that took away all the Palestinian land after WW2 and displaced its people. All the Palestinans get relocated to this New Palestine and it is ceded to them forever. Maybe we should give them Rhode Island...

2. Italy should create a new country "Isreal" from its own territory. This is because Isreal was destroyed by the Roman Empire which took away all the Isreali land, scattered its people, and turned it into Palestine. All Isrealis are are relocated to this New Isreal and it is ceded to them forever. Maybe they should give them Sicily...

>> ^imstellar28:
^Iraqi kurds is an example of a force differential. Chemicals weapons versus light arms fire. Same thing happens when you have light arms fire versus unarmed fists. Genocide cannot occur when both sides are equally armed.

Well I hope you've got some pretty huge guns then, because right now your force differential is looking pretty bad versus the mightiest army in the world.

if the CIA/secret service decides to round me up, what else are my options? Surrender and walk myself to the gas chamber? At least with a firearm I would have some sort of chance to fire back and flee the state/country, and they would be hesitant to round people up if at every house they were met with a barrage of gunfire

They might hesitate for about ten minutes whilst they wait for the flame tank to burn you out. How many people do you think would resist after the first 100 or so were slaughterd with their families. Causing hesitation isn't enough. The end result is the same.

the government could have killed Japanese-americans, but they were deterred in part by the threat an armed American populace who does not condone genocide. if the government is already okay with rounding people up into prisons based on race, is it really that unthinkable that the next step would be genocide? there are roughly 300,000 active troops, but there are almost 300,000,000 citizens holding 150,000,000 guns. that is a very powerful deterrent that is also rather transparent to most people.

The deterrent is perfectly transparent to me thank you very much. If I was China/Russia thinking of a US land grab I would definitely think twice against a 150,000,000 man war. My whole point is that in a domestic situation the people being oppressed are usually the minority so half of those guns are actually pointing AT you. Your notion that Americans would've risen up against their government if it commited a Japanese genocide is very honorable, but not realistic IMO. My original point was that many Americans didn't much care for "Japs" and would probably have swallowed whatever propaganda the government fed them about "spies" etc. Let's not forget that exactly what we're theorising about did happen in Germany and barely a handful of people did anything about it. It wasn't because they lacked guns, they lacked knowledge and those that had it lacked will. At the end of the day when most people are faced with a choice between their morals and their life they choose the latter.

There are at least two dozen examples of mass genocide in the last century with full, detailed historical accounts available. There are plenty of books on the subject, one of which is the one I sourced above. Please read it into yourself, you know what they say about history and those who do not learn from it.

I can't guarantee I will find time to read it, but if you post the name and author I'll see if I can find it this side of the pond.

when you become defenseless and depend only on the government for protection, you are essentially living your life on faith--and I don't believe in faith, I believe in facts. a gun will protect me, faith will not.

On the contrary; you are the one that has faith in your gun. Guns are offensive weapons, not defenses. You can have your shoot-out, but the best you can hope for is to kill a few bad guys before they get you.

>> ^dgandhi:
>> ^rougy: They're no more a right than bazookas or hand grenades.
I'm not big on guns personally, but the right to keep and bear arms is clearly to enable the populous to overthrow the government by force. We do have a constitutional right to bazookas and hand grenades, it's just not very popular/politic to say so.


I'm sorry, but that's just not realistic.

You pull out your bazooka, they bring out their tanks and helicopters.

You toss your hand grenade, and they'll drop their bunker buster.

It's nothing short of romaniticism to think that we can overthrow our government by those means.

>> ^MaxWilder:
>> ^imstellar28:
^I agree, if everyone only gets taxed on Rape Kits, but shes also paying a lot of other taxes on items she doesn't use--its a magic trick--you don't see all the other items she paid taxes on but never used--all you see is the rape kit. Either way shes paying that $300, and then some.


Somebody's been reading too much Ayn Rand. That's a fantasy. Very fun to think about, but not realistic. If we stopped paying taxes and stopped getting government services, the poor and ingorant would be living like animals, with short and brutal lives.
Maybe you think everybody would rise above it and help each other from becoming so destitute. Well we have a system designed to do that. It's called government. If the system is broken, we can fix it if we work together. But calling for its abandonment will not help anybody.
So yes, she is paying the $300 one way or another, but not in the middle of the most traumatic event of her life.


just curious, whats stopping the "women against violence" charity from donating money to cover the cost of local rape kits? or a judge from sentencing every convicted rapist (among other consequences) to cover the cost of 25 rape kits?

i've read two books by ayn rand--one at 138 pages, and one at 224 pages. i guess thats a lot if you're someone who doesn't read any books?